7 Things to Know About the 26 Year-Old Tumblr CEO Who Just Made $220M

David Karp proves high school isn't for everyone

Considering the fact that I count down and get excited for my bi-weekly paychecks, I can’t imagine how it would feel to get one paycheck for a whopping $220 million.

Pretty good, I guess.

Yes, that’s how much 26-year-old Tumblr CEO David Karp recently made by selling his blogging platform to search giant Yahoo (YHOO). Marissa Mayer’s company promised not to screw up the site in a recent press release, while Karp signed off “F@&! yeah” in a recent blog post about it.

Curious about Karp? Here are seven things to know about the CEO:

Karp, from New York, was a high school dropout. He stopped going to school at age 15.

After dropping out, Karp taught himself how to code, got a job at UrbanBay and was soon the head of product there. The company was later acquired by CNET.

He started Tumblr just over six years ago while living in mother’s aparment. Within two weeks, the blogging platform had 75,000 active users. Today, Tumblr is used by 117 million people per month and is home to over 100 million blogs.

David Karp’s stake in Tumblr today is estimated at 20%. The overall sale to Yahoo was for $1.1 billion, which is why Karp is getting around $220 million off the bat.

Of course, hundreds of millions isn’t foreign to Karp; he is already worth more than $200 million on paper. Still, he lives a modest life, according to Business Insider.

Currently, Karp lives in a 1,700-square-foot, $1.6 million loft in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, but that’s one of his only big-ticket purchases. Other than that, he keeps things pretty cheap and low-key.

Karp also has a long-time girlfriend named Rachel and a dog named Clark.